The spread of the Covid-19, beyond the gates of the Elysée Palace and the ministries? A heavyweight of the government prefers to joke: "One French in three could catch it, so it might as well be quickly rid!" If, as Emmanuel Macron says, "we are at the very beginning of this epidemic", it is already galloping to the top of the state.
Monday evening, it was the Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, who was diagnosed positive, after arriving on rue de Valois while coughing. He was confined for fourteen days. The message was immediately passed on to his colleagues: according to the Regional Health Agency, it was only contagious since Saturday or Sunday. Detecting signs of the virus before the weekend - he had eaten his meals at the refreshment room of the Assembly, where a server was infected - he had been preventively isolated.
The presidential couple will still vote in Le Touquet
In the aftermath, the turn of the Keeper of the Seals, Nicole Belloubet, to feel "slightly feverish" and to cancel all her meetings, Tuesday, while awaiting the result of her test. In contact with a positive case last week, Patrick Strzoda, the chief of staff of the president, was invited to telecommute, "as a precaution". At least two other Elysian collaborators, also "asymptomatic", did the same, in case ...
The Elysée now lives under "reinforced precautionary measures". No more meetings are held in the President's office. Cleaning the objects he touches, pens, pads, files or initials has become manic. His advisers were also asked to avoid crowded places. Hydroalcoholic gel is available in the waiting rooms and corridors. This weekend, the presidential couple will however vote as planned at Le Touquet. A power of attorney would send a disastrous signal to the public. "The country is not in quarantine! ", Insists an Elysian adviser.
"Only those with symptoms have been tested"
No question, either, of giving the feeling of exceptional treatment ... At the end of the day on Tuesday, no preventive test of all members of the government was scheduled before they met this Wednesday for the Council of Ministers. The line stated by Matignon is clear: “Only those who have symptoms have been tested. What ministers experience is what millions of French people experience. "A ministerial adviser suffocates:" But not all French people find themselves in the same room as the president and the Prime Minister! "
If it is not the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, tested negatively two days ago, or Patrick Strzoda whose results are expected, no breach of this rule has been agreed. Not even for Emmanuel Macron. At the Elysée, where "the embolism of the hospital system in Italy" is a counterexample, they hammered: "We must not saturate the system".
A minister assures him, "they are very anxious to get this message across to the public, the worst would be to make people believe that we have some freebies." Which leaves one of his colleagues stunned: "It's still a little crazy, the coronavirus could put half the government on the shelf, and we will meet on Wednesday morning around the big table being potentially carriers … ”